The 128GB iPad has landed, and (some) readers tell us they’re buying

The full-size, fourth-gen iPad now comes with extra-high capacity storage.

It's February 5, and that means the much-discussed 128GB iPad is now available for purchase. Announced just last week, the maxed-out fourth-generation, full-size iPad starts at $799 for the Wi-Fi only model, or $929 for Wi-Fi + Cellular. As of this writing, the device appears to ship almost immediately here in the US—one to three days for the Wi-Fi model and three to five days for the LTE version.

Who, exactly, is buying this monstrous (and monstrously expensive) iPad with so much storage space? Apparently a good number of you. When we polled our readers after the announcement last week, we received more than 10,000 responses with nearly 20 percent saying they planned to buy one. As for the reasons, 14 percent said they were doing so because they're running out of room on an existing tablet or smartphone, while just under 5 percent said the 128GB iPad appealed to them because it finally has the capacity they need to replace another computing device.

There were more Ars readers—about 80 percent, in fact—who said they weren't going to buy a 128GB iPad anytime soon, though nearly 10 percent of those were Android users who said they wouldn't mind a 128GB Android tablet. Another 6.5 percent said they had no interest in tablets whatsoever, so they're not buying anything of the like.

Still, the numbers show that while the 128GB iPad with retina display isn't for everybody, there's certainly a segment of the market that is interested in such a high-capacity tablet from Apple. Have any of you who claimed you would buy one decided to back out now that you've had a week to cool off, or are you still gung-ho on the purchase?

So the obvious question is why would you need that much storage space?

I have a great painting app, Procreate, on my iPad. Between myself and the kids, we've pushed its allotment to 1.5GB. I could easily see where an artist using it daily -- and there have been artists using iPad apps to paint covers for the New Yorker and such, so I'm sure someone out there is doing contract work with his -- could rack up a lot of GB in just that one app.

To be honest I am less interested with the release of the 128GB iPad and more interested in how/when they released it.

Why now?

We had the 3rd gen. iPad last March/April (i think).A refresh of the tech late last year.Now an addition to the iPad lineup.

Had things gone...traditionally.. we would have seen new hardware this upcoming March/April.

I am guessing that isnt happening or neccesary now given the spec bumps? My iPad (3rd Gen) is less than a year old and there have already been significant changes to the offering (hardware bump, mini version, new sku). I don't care about having the newest toy on the block, I just think the approach is unusual.

To me Apple's strategy with their lineup, release schedule, etc is the more interesting story. Are they planning something or just pushing a faster release schedule?

I bought my first iPad last year and thought that between my desktop, my NAS and the cloud 16GB would be plenty of space. Especially since I listen to my music via Rdio and now that I have Netflix (yay for bringing the service to Brazil) what would I need the space for?

Well it turns out that apps are big, especially as the iPad gaming experiences get more advanced than Angry Birds, such as Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition which is 1gb easy. Combined with my local storage in Pocket, my Knights of the Dinner Table comics in PDF along with a few RPG books and of course my book collection in Marvin.. and games.. I love the iPad for board games. Well I am running out for to often for my liking and I will definitely get something bigger the next time. Perhaps not the 128GB version but I imagine that my usage even with more content displaced to other places the trend will continue to be that my iPad will be full to the brim.

And I am not even a heavy user of the iPad, I certainly imagine there are plenty of people who want 128GB and even beyond of storage. I think the product makes sense and will fill the need of a fairly large group of people. For me the iPad already replaces a laptop, with larger storage it is not hard to see it doing the same for others.

I just don't understand what the discussion is here. You need the space or you don't. (Personally, I'm just peachy with 32GB; but I'm glad people who need 128 can now get it.)

How do you know ahead of time how much space you need? What if Apple pull another Retina and quadruple the bitmap resource size of all store apps again?

Pull another Retina? Well, I think that 2,000 x1,500 is about as high as needed for the size display. I can't imagine a Rez as high as that on my iPhone. Even that seems higher than needed. There are displays coming out with even higher Rez, but it seems to be a marketing point more than anything else. Maybe if they come out with a much bigger product.

But I do need more memory. Games are over the 1Gig number, and data from apps can get pretty high, especially if you accumulate a lot of apps, which is very easy to do.

I'm sorry, but some people just don't need a full laptop, but want access to their content and web access on the go, how is this different from any other solution? The Surface Pro AFAIK has no cellular access but costs about the same.

I'm sorry, but some people just don't need a full laptop, but want access to their content and web access on the go, how is this different from any other solution? The Surface Pro AFAIK has no cellular access but costs about the same.

The Surface Pro is also a full x86 computer; a fairly powerful one for the price.

So the obvious question is why would you need that much storage space?

It's not a question that anyone should bother asking, some people want that much space , their reasons and rationale are their own and different from yours , the only thing that might be worth asking is if this will push the rest of the ipad pricing down and get rid of the 16GB model altogether.

There's no $1000 iPad. The wifi 128GB costs $799, and the LTE version costs $929. And if you don't need that much space, well, Apple hasn't changed the price points of any of the other configurations.

I just don't understand what the discussion is here. You need the space or you don't. (Personally, I'm just peachy with 32GB; but I'm glad people who need 128 can now get it.)

Here is the problem that some people don't seem to get:

This is not 2009. Everything else in the iPad has been replaced with something much better. We went from single core to quad core, and from 256MB of RAM to 1024. See a trend here?The only thing that seems to be stuck in 2009 is that "base" IPads ship with only 16GB. At a time when storage that size is given away on cereal boxes.

So yes, I have to sort of agree with the commenter so mentioned the "fool and his money" saying to some degree, since apple is clearly pricing capacity well above their 2009 prices.

How do you know ahead of time how much space you need? What if Apple pull another Retina and quadruple the bitmap resource size of all store apps again?

Great point -- you can't. Buying more storage is a way of future-proofing your purchase.

If you're future proofing your purchase in order to save money in the long run then you are doing it the wrong way. It would be cheaper to buy a cheaper tablet (probably going to have to go with Android for this approach) and then buy a new cheap tablet in a few years. You'll still spend less than the ~$1k and your second device will be more powerful than the aging "future-proofed" device.

On the other hand if you just need your device to last for a long time without changing devices then yeah you'd probably want to buy a top of the line device. Or if you really need the extra performance of the expensive device now and into the future then you really can't go with the cheaper models.

So the obvious question is why would you need that much storage space?

I like how we scoff at flash drive sizes and hard drive sizes but when it comes to something that you can only choose once and you're locked in at that size... people manage to go... "what would you need ALL THAT space for?" 128 gigs is nothing anymore.

I'm sorry, but some people just don't need a full laptop, but want access to their content and web access on the go, how is this different from any other solution? The Surface Pro AFAIK has no cellular access but costs about the same.

The Surface Pro is also a full x86 computer; a fairly powerful one for the price.

So the obvious question is why would you need that much storage space?

I do, so that I don't have to keep messing around with movie files everytime I won't have access to the net for an extended period of time. I'm not paying that much for it though: I'm getting $50 64GB µSD cards for my android tablet, and for more extreme cases, I put a $70 1TB hard drive into my $250 netbook.

I'm sorry, but some people just don't need a full laptop, but want access to their content and web access on the go, how is this different from any other solution? The Surface Pro AFAIK has no cellular access but costs about the same.

The Surface Pro is also a full x86 computer; a fairly powerful one for the price.

The Surface Pro also isn't exactly selling well.

and has 23 GB Available for use!

And USB ports. And an SD port. And ways to reclaim the recovery partition. Your point ?

I'm sorry, but some people just don't need a full laptop, but want access to their content and web access on the go, how is this different from any other solution? The Surface Pro AFAIK has no cellular access but costs about the same.

The Surface Pro is also a full x86 computer; a fairly powerful one for the price.

I'm assuming the people in the "why do you need that much space" camp still imagine that tablets are gimmicky kids toys with no real world application, not realizing they are quickly evolving into full computing devices that stand to take the place of PC's for a growing demographic.

Between PDF's on Adobe Reader, large games (original and ported), art applications (Procreate), music applications (Garageband), I'm constantly at capacity on my little 16gb, and that with learning to relegate most of my media to streaming (Pandora, Netflix, etc). For those who want a more personalized media system with their own music, movies, books, etc, 16, 32, and even 64 just become unrealistic.